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Van Morrison
The Best of Van Morrison, Volume 3
(Manhattan/EMI)
First Appeared in The Music Box, August 2007, Volume 14, #8
Written by John Metzger
Anyone who thinks that Van Morrison has lost his touch ought to listen to the
music that is contained on The Best of Van Morrison, Volume 3. It goes
without saying that nothing on the set is as groundbreaking as his work during
the early ’70s. Nevertheless, while following his muse as he waltzed from style
to style, he managed to illuminate and reshape his past by highlighting and
exploring his roots. Covering a 12-year span that stretches from 1993’s Too
Long in Exile to 2005’s Magic Time, The Best of Van Morrison,
Volume 3 succeeds in making sense of Morrison’s eclectic and prolific output
by capturing the essence of who he is as a songwriter and a performer. Although
his albums have faltered from time to time, everything that he has delivered to
market has held at least a few key moments. When these are viewed within the
context of The Best of Van Morrison, Volume 3, it becomes clear that
there was method to his madness all along.
Strange as it may seem, the disparate paths that Morrison has traversed since
1993 sound less scattered than one initially might expect. This is quite an
accomplishment, too, considering that in addition to presenting, in
chronological order, a hodgepodge of tracks from 11 of his 12 studio efforts —
oddly, You Win Again, his collaboration with Linda Gail Lewis is not
represented — The Best of Van Morrison, Volume 3 also makes room for a
handful of rarities and remixed cuts. Credit simply must be afforded to
Morrison, who hand-selected the material that appears on the set, for the manner
in which he smoothed the sometimes jagged and jarring transitions that have
separated one album from the next. Not only does he deftly find the connections
between his varied pursuits, as only he could, but he also links them together
in a way that makes it seem, at times, as if he has added as many formidable
weapons to his arsenal over the past decade-plus as he did during the first 10
years of his career.
It helps, of course, that he tucked a few ringers into the fabric of The
Best of Van Morrison, Volume 3. Georgie Fame, for example, lends a hand in
briskly delivering Moondance as a straightforward jazz piece, while Ray
Charles is tapped for a gospel-infused reading of Crazy Love. Elsewhere,
Morrison and Bobby Bland embark on a soulful excursion through Tupelo Honey
that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on one of Al Green’s efforts from the
early ’70s, and with the help of John Lee Hooker, Gloria is recast as a
hard-edged, barn-burning, blues-y romp. There are other guests, too, who are
equally sympathetic to whatever style Morrison happens to be working: Skiffle
king Lonnie Donegan (Lost John), blues legends B.B. King (Early in the
Morning) and Junior Wells (Help Me), and rockabilly great Carl
Perkins (Sitting on Top of the World) all take turns in provoking the
best performances out of Morrison.
Without having to focus upon including any particular sequence of songs,
Morrison was free to be as selective as he needed to be in order to navigate his
recent endeavors in a seamless fashion. Consequently, the songs that he chose to
include on The Best of Van Morrison, Volume 3 were judged not only by the
quality of the performances but also against what they brought to the story that
he was trying to tell. His interpretation of Georgia on My Mind is
stronger within the context of the retrospective than it was when it first
appeared on the otherwise magnificent Down the Road. At the same time,
the tune also foreshadows his duet with Ray Charles on Crazy Love.
Likewise, the orchestrated slice of Appalachia, albeit with an Irish twist, that
he created with The Chieftains on Shenandoah mutates into the Elton
John-alluding strings that grace a revamped rendition of Meet Me in the
Indian Summer, while the gently lilting refrain of Hey Mr. DJ
inevitably leads the Sam Cooke-inspired Once in a Blue Moon.
Each track on The Best of Van Morrison, Volume 3 undeniably is meant
to highlight a specific aspect of Morrison’s variegated persona. As the endeavor
proves, he can be a Sinatra-esque crooner, an Ellington-ian arranger, a
down-and-dirty bluesman, and a fire-and-brimstone soul singer. Nevertheless, the
individual components of the collection also serve as stepping stones that allow
him to skip safely across a rather diverse set of compositions. Where an
examination of his albums since 1992 might lead a person to think that he has
jumped from one place to another on a whim, the careful crafting of his
retrospective paints an entirely different portrait by giving the appearance
that his many interests are all part of a cleverly scripted career arc. Although
his output over the course of the last decade hasn’t been nearly as bad as many
have made it out to be, The Best of Van Morrison, Volume 3 gives the
impression that it was more consistent than reality would otherwise dictate. 
The Best of Van Morrison, Volume 3 is available from
Amazon.com. To order, Click Here!
For Canadian orders, please
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Ratings
1 Star: Pitiful
2 Stars: Listenable
3 Stars: Respectable
4 Stars: Excellent
5 Stars: Can't Live Without It!!
Copyright © 2007 The Music Box
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